10 Social Media Mistakes Speakers and Coaches Make on Facebook

As a virtual professional, I spend oodles of time on social media for coaches and speakers, helping them shine like the stars they are! And you know, because part of what we do on our team here is engage with other pages on behalf of our clients’ pages, we see an awful lot of folks misusing Facebook. Or perhaps misusing is the wrong word. What’s the word for, “not taking full advantage of?” 😉

Today I’m going to share with you the top ten mistakes I see made by speakers and coaches on Facebook.

Multiple pages. Okay, everybody. You should not be doing business on your personal page and your professional “coach” page, and your official business page, and in all of those groups you have going on. For heaven’s sakes, people don’t know where to look! You need to have your personal profile, but it’s meant to be personal, not represent your business. While you can still mention your business and share posts that provide value and benefit from your Business page to your personal profile (and still stay within Facebook’s guidelines), do everything to promote your business and sell products or services on your professional business page. Groups should really be very specific and used sparingly.

Not maximizing the use of your Business page. If you can link to your newsletter from your Business page (which you can!) why wouldn’t you? Use the cover image for special promotions. Fill in your bio! Link to your website. Invite people to leave reviews. When someone is interested in doing business with you, you may be surprised at how much time they’ll spend digging through your Facebook page. Give them useful stuff to read!

Not organizing photos and videos. When you add quotes, add them to a special album for “Quotes.” Photos of events? Add them to albums with dates or titles of the specific occasion. Rein those things in. It will make it much easier to find something when you need it, and it will help direct a visitor to finding what they’re interested in more easily.

Not sharing across networks or cross-posting. I see this mistake all the time, where people are missing the chance to widen their networks by not sharing information across their networks. Cross-sharing is very important if you want to get your message out there. That’s why pinning a post or graphic from Google+ to your Pinterest account, or sharing an Instagram post to Facebook or Twitter, or sharing from your Facebook business page to your profile can be a good thing … when done correctly. Sharing from one platform to another will direct your followers to more places they can find you. It’s a big social media world, so spread those wings!

Posting the same content across all networks. I mean identical updates, here. If you’re using Instagram to push out your social media updates, that’s fine, but don’t just send the same thing via Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook all the time. Try to change things up a little bit. While it’s certainly appropriate to share some of your Instagram posts to Facebook (Facebook owns Instagram) and Twitter, you’ll want to avoid always sharing all of them across all 3 platforms at the same time. Facebook users don’t like seeing #tweets and #Instagram #updates in their newsfeed all the time. Plus, the three platforms target different audiences, which should always be a consideration.

Careless errors. If you don’t have an editor at your fingertips, at least read your updates over a few times before you post them so you can catch glaring mistakes! My tip: read them out loud. You catch more mistakes that way!

Outdated content. If you’ve changed something about your business, please update that on your Facebook “About” page. There’s nothing worse than looking for specific details on Facebook and being unable to find anything that’s been updated since 2012.

Not being social. When I see a page that’s just about “me me me me” it makes me want to run away screaming. Well, perhaps not literally. Social media has to be social. That means you have to talk about other things, other businesses, and engage with other pages by sharing and liking their content too!

Not letting your hair down. It’s important to remain professional, but social media is what it is … social. It is very cool to see the suit and tie types loosen up a bit on Facebook. Maybe it’s a picture of the park you’re visiting with your dog to catch up on a bit of work, or your recent boat excursion. Don’t forget the whole point of being on Facebook is to create a warm persona to help people connect with human beings. Be human.

Using Facebook instead of a website/blog. Facebook is great, but it’s owned by a third party. If Facebook disappeared tomorrow, do you have enough content on your own website to remain relevant?

BizEase provides a number of services specifically geared toward social media for coaches and speakers. To learn more, check out our website. Or… our Facebook Page!

Speakers...are you suffering from Super Speaker Syndrome?

Discover the top 3 sources of Kryptonite that can
paralyze your business.

100% Privacy. Your email address is safe with us ... we hate spam as much as you do and promise to never, ever sell or trade your information with anyone. Cross our hearts and hope to ... well you know! We simply don't spam.

In business since 1991, Terry Green is the founder/CEO/President of BizEase Support Solutions, an American-based, online marketing support company comprised of a team of talented professionals from around North America. BizEase excels at providing speakers and business coaches worldwide with seamless online marketing solutions, from setting up shopping carts and editing video, to writing blog posts and managing Social Media and PR campaigns. BizEase clients (who span five continents) take great joy in allowing the BizEase team to take care of the details so they can get back to doing what they do best! Click here to get our weekly tips ezine delivered to your inbox every Friday, with tips on plugins, apps, and tools to make you more productive today!
Follow Terry on G+